Lifetimes
by WeatherWatch
Summary: It was astonishing, really, the way a lifetime fit snugly inside a single breath. Gen-fic. Immediately post-TLTW&TW


**I just read the entire Narnia collection by C.S Lewis for the first time (*shakes fist violently at Susan*) and thus had to watch all the recent movies, and now – oh dear – I'm listening to The Call on repeat and _this_ has happened! Also, "The Call" + the last page or so of The Last Battle = me in hysterical weeping fit. Woe.**

**Summary: It was astonishing, really, the way a lifetime fit snugly inside a single breath.  
>[Immediately post-TLTW&amp;TW]<strong>

**Disclaimer: I gain nothing but satisfaction and perhaps a few reviews.**

* * *

><p>"<strong>lifetimes"<br>**_let your memories grow stronger and stronger  
>'til they're before your eyes<br>_regina spektor / the call

* * *

><p>In the days following their undignified exit from the wardrobe – from<em> Narnia<em> – each of the children visited the spare room; they went alone, secretly, and all for different reasons, but all with a kindred resignation hovering over them.

Peter, feeling lost somewhere on the cusp of a manhood he had already once achieved, contemplated his place in a world that didn't acknowledge him as a lord and ruler. To go from High King to schoolboy was not a desirable progression, but he was nothing if not staid. Instead of throwing himself into his position at the head of a nation he threw himself into being the head of his family, often to the aggravation of his siblings, though they were, quite frankly, excessively fond of him and increasingly grateful to have at least one anchor, one individual to whom they could relinquish their fears and their troubles.

He crept, late one night, a few days after their homecoming, silently through the enormous house to the spare room, observing the great wooden entity with a mixture of sadness and nostalgia. Narnia had _shaped_ him. He'd learned responsibility there, and how to lead; how to command respect and construct the most amiable of relations.

Yet, he knew he must remain in England; and even if he _had_ succumbed to his deepest wishes to return, the wardrobe was no longer the gateway it had been: it was now a simple wardrobe once more.

* * *

><p>Susan, who resembled more closely than any of her siblings her Narnian likeness, was slowest to return to the room. She was both gentle-natured and mature, and so was able to leave what already seemed so much like a dream to her far behind. However, try as she might, she could not lift the niggling feeling that urged her towards the room that housed the wardrobe. Eventually, she gave in to curiosity and, one sunny morning, artfully avoided her siblings, Mrs Macready and the Professor to slip quietly into the room, shutting the door behind her.<p>

She stood motionless for what seemed an age before she stepped determinedly forward. Opening the door of the wardrobe she winced as it creaked obnoxiously. Carefully, gently so as not to disturb them, Susan moved aside the fur coats, some of whose companions they had borrowed (_had_ _they_?) on their arrival in Narnia.

She was heavily disappointed yet simultaneously somewhat fortified when, instead of finding the snowy idyll or woody landscape of her memories, her hand struck the wooden board of the wardrobe's back-facing.

Still, when she left Susan couldn't help but turn to settle her gaze one final time upon the defiantly ordinary wooden fixture.

* * *

><p>Of all his siblings, Edmund had both gained and lost the most during their time in Narnia. Gone was his childish cruelty and arrogance, and replacing it was honour and a dependability that he should have been very late in adopting with only England as his tutor. Betrayal and forgiveness had changed him for the better and when Aslan bestowed upon him the humbling title of King Edmund the Just, Duke of the Lantern Waste and Count of the Western Marches, Edmund Pevensie had vowed to honour it to the highest capacity.<p>

He had grown to be a man of firm principles; discovered himself to be a respected king who dealt well with the ambassador's of neighbouring countries and who, impressively, had become a most important figure in the law-making of Narnia.

To be unceremoniously tossed back to the beginning was painful, to say the least. The great house reminded him greatly of the boy he had been, and there were few things he wished for more deeply than to be rid of those memories – for if he were rid of them, then they should not have happened. He wished fervently that he had not been so disagreeable and awful to his family; wished desperately that he had not been so easily taken in by the White Witch because of his unfounded jealousy of Peter and ridiculous resentment of his sisters.

Still, for Edmund, Narnia had been the best thing ever to have happened to him. He knew his good fortune and acknowledged it, returning to the spare room only two days after falling from that wonderful world back into his old reality.

He stood very near the closed doors, understanding implicitly that the way was shut – at least for now.

A pale hand reached out to caress the wood, gently resting on the carved shapes of animals that decorated the wardrobe's exterior. And as Edmund conveyed into the world a silent expression of thanks he realised that his palm had stopped on the majestic form of a lion.

* * *

><p>Little Lucy returned to the wardrobe the very night they'd arrived back in England, taking with her a candle to light the way through the dark corridors. She stood in that room for hours, thinking of Mr Tumnus, and the Beavers, and of all the things she had seen and done as Queen Lucy the Valiant.<p>

The youngest Pevensie recalled peaceful days spent with her siblings and their court, remembered wild adventures, and felt tears well up in her eyes at the thought of being removed from them indefinitely. Aslan had explained to them that once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen, but to be displaced from their wonderful existence had seemed, at this time, unfair.

Oh, how she wished to be back there! Narnia was a part of her– it was a place she had discovered and grown in, and to leave it all behind hurt dreadfully.

Impulsively, Lucy swung the wardrobe door open.

For a moment there was nothing and a sinking feeling overcame her, but then the flame in her hand flickered briefly before being snuffed out entirely as a warm, familiar breath swept over her.

She smiled.

* * *

><p><strong>End.<strong>

**Read and review responsibly, please and thank you. Un-beta'd, so I hope there aren't any overt issues.**


End file.
